June Monday 19-2000

UN chief gets his way over pullout report
Lahoud hammers away at ‘fictitious demarcation line’…(1)

The UN Security Council agreed on Sunday to endorse Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s verification that “Israeli” troops have pulled out of Lebanon.
But in a nod to Russia, the council also acknowledged there may have been some violations of the border, as Beirut insists, since Annan made his certification on Friday.
Annan, who is due in Beirut on Monday, had threatened to cancel the trip if the council did not support his position.
The council’s statement was read in an open, formal meeting by its current president, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte. Statements require the consent of all 15 council members.
Russia had delayed the council statement since Saturday because Lebanon insisted that “Israelis” were still on its soil.
Also, sources close to the Lebanese delegation charged with verifying the withdrawal said that “Israel” had committed four new violations over the past two days.
A UN team would be asked to re-verify the border on Monday, the sources said.
Annan will fly into a diplomatic storm when he arrives in Beirut Monday after Lebanon’s weekend rejection of the Security Council statement.
The Russian government has represented Lebanon’s view at the Security Council even though Beirut’s approval is not required for any endorsement.
Diplomats say that the delay is embarrassing to Annan, who will be in Beirut as part of a seven-nation Middle East tour.
Annan is due to hold talks with President Emile Lahoud, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Salim Hoss, as well as UNIFIL officials in Naqoura. He is scheduled to leave for Amman on Tuesday and visit Syria later in the week.
On Saturday, the Security Council held a marathon 10-hour session to force Annan’s report through. Discussions continued until 4am and reportedly included a three-way telephone conference between Lahoud, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Security Council President Jean-David Levitte of France.
In a statement, Lahoud said that he reiterated Beirut’s position to Albright. “Lebanon insists it will never grant its approval before the Lebanese and UN teams have verified the withdrawal,” he said, adding that a hasty endorsement of the withdrawal was “unjustified and dangerous, particularly as the United Nations had informed Lebanon on Saturday that it had rectified four “Israeli” violations, contrary to the secretary-general’s previous confirmation of a complete withdrawal.”
The statement said that Lahoud  would reject any “fictitious” UN-defined border line if “Israel” did not withdraw from 13 incursion areas recorded by Lebanon’s verification team.
US Ambassador David Satterfield and French Ambassador Phillippe Lecourtier, who met Hoss separately on Saturday, said their countries supported the UN’s findings. But Lecourtier said he would prepare a report detailing Lebanon’s views and submit it to Paris.
Hoss also called Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid, who said that he would ask Arab states in the UN to back Lebanon’s position, Hoss said in a statement.
Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib bin Yehia, whose country is currently the only Arab member in the Security Council, pledged to back Lebanon during a call to Hoss.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa and the European Union’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, Miguel Angel Moratinos, also contacted Hoss.
For their part, sources with the Lebanese border-mapping team said that their UN counterparts had acknowldged 13 “Israeli” violations on Friday before Annan announced his confirmation of the withdrawal.
Hizbullah’s deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Nahim Qassem, said that the UN’s endorsement of the “Israeli” withdrawal indicated bias toward “Israel” and would leave Hizbullah no choice but to reactivate military operations against the Jewish state.

Controversy over confirmation of withdrawal stems from ‘Larsen’s ego and Annan’s travel plans’…(2)

“The hasty and tactless manner in which the UN publicly declared that “Israel” had fully withdrawn from Lebanon appears to have been fueled by personal animosity between UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen and Lebanese officials as much as by a desire to end the process of verifying “Israel’s” withdrawal.
The UN confirmation of the “Israeli” withdrawal ­ accurate or not ­ will not only allow a strengthened UNIFIL to deploy to the border but will apparently also lead to a new post being created for a special UN coordinator for Lebanon who will report directly to Larsen.
Despite clear Lebanese objections to the withdrawal-verification process and genuine ambiguities over the extent of “Israel’s” pullout, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on Friday that “Israel” had fulfilled Resolution 425 and fully withdrawn from Lebanon.
Annan proceeded with his news conference on Friday having won assurances from the “Israelis” that by Saturday they would pull out of two locations which crossed the line of withdrawal.
With a busy itinerary this week, including his trip to the Middle East, Annan was unwilling to have last-minute disputes over the “Israeli” withdrawal upset his schedule.
“The news conference was scheduled and it’s been assumed over the past week that things would be wrapped up by (last) Thursday,” said a well-placed source in Washington. “Obviously the Secretariat thinks that residual problems will be resolved quickly.”
During the news conference, the UN secretary-general said UNIFIL had informed him that “Israel” had complied with Resolution 425 and withdrawn completely from Lebanon. Yet only a few hours before the announcement, UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel was quoted as saying that while the inspection of the border had ended on Friday, the verification process was not over. A number of discrepancies had yet to be resolved.
UNIFIL’s conspicuous silence over the weekend in the face of this apparent contradiction leads one to suspect that the 22-year-old peacekeeping force found Annan’s premature endorsement awkward to say the least.
On Friday The Daily Star  witnessed “Israeli” troops in the northern half of Ghajar ­ which falls in Lebanese territory ­ after the UN verification team had checked the area.
Despite Annan’s confirmation of an “Israeli” withdrawal, eyewitnesses confirmed that “Israeli” troops remained north of the withdrawal line in Ghajar on Sunday. The soldiers were spotted five minutes after the UN team had returned to reconnoiter the area for a second time.
The UN has been pressing for a speedy conclusion to the border-verification process so that a reinforced UNIFIL can begin deploying throughout the former occupation zone.
The process, however, was complicated by the creation of a specific line of withdrawal by Larsen for the purposes of confirming “Israel’s” pullout.
In his report on Resolution 425’s implementation, Annan had decreed that the line of withdrawal should conform to the 1923 Anglo-French boundary ­ subsequently ratified by the 1949 Armistice Agreement.
Larsen, however, chose to deviate from the 1923/1949 line in favor of “Israel” in a few key places. The Lebanese were told that the deviation was to address ““Israeli” security needs” ­ a justification that won little sympathy in Beirut.
As soon as Larsen chose to depart from the impartial 1923/1949 line, the operation was bound to become subject to controversy and disagreements.
However, Lebanese complaints of bias ­ which were outlined in a detailed presidential memorandum last week ­ went ignored by the UN.
This was due, in no small part, to a contemptuous attitude from certain UN officials to the government and also personal animosity directed by Larsen toward Major General Jamil Sayyed, the director-general of the Surete Generale.
The UN special envoy has apparently resented Sayyed’s presence in formal meetings to discuss “Israel’s” withdrawal since his first trip to Lebanon at the beginning of May.
Reuters quoted a “senior UN official” on Sunday as blaming Beirut’s rejection of Annan’s declaration on “one finicky general.” According to Reuters the official said that Lebanon’s civilian leadership was unable to overrule his assessments.
The “senior UN official” is believed to have been Larsen himself, while the “finicky general” was apparently Sayyed.
“There is, I’m sorry to say, profound contempt on both
the professional and personal level,” the Washington-based source said. “Perhaps it goes both ways.”
The source added that this was no excuse for the “not-quite-right UN Secretariat action.”
A Western diplomat in Beirut admitted that there had been some “hanky panky” on the part of the UN and warned that an inability to forge a solution could even result in renewed fighting along the border.
Another diplomat blamed the crisis on “Larsen’s disastrous personal diplomacy.”
“This isn’t true diplomacy. It has become personal. The Lebanese have some shortcomings in their stance but they don’t deserve this treatment,” he said.
The diplomat added that the problem stemmed from “one man’s ego (Larsen) and another man’s travel plans (Annan).”
“Annan has been working hard to push this through the Security Council so that he wouldn’t have to change his travel plans to the Middle East,” the diplomat said.
Larsen ­ who wields considerable influence with Annan ­ has not won the support of all UN officials in New York, many of whom have privately questioned the special envoy’s Lebanon policy.
According to one diplomatic source in New York, Larsen has engineered a “palace coup” by completely marginalizing the department of peacekeeping operations.
Officials from the department were “stunned” during Friday’s news conference when Larsen “broke all UN traditions” by speaking about UNIFIL’s strength, tactics and deployment, subjects that “he knows nothing about,” the diplomat said.
The Daily Star has learned that the next step will be to appoint a UN coordinator for Lebanon who will keep an eye on the Lebanese government and UNIFIL and report directly to Larsen in New York. This new post will be “sold” to the government as a vehicle to generate more funds for Lebanon from international donors.
But the reality behind the move is to neutralize the peacekeeping department’s authority over UNIFIL, placing it firmly in the hands of Larsen, who will then be in a position “to keep the heat on Lebanon.”

Military court keeps up steady pace in militia trials…(3)
A military court has handed down sentences to 39 people convicted of collaborating with “Israel” as military investigating magistrates continue to question other suspects.
On Saturday, the military’s chief investigating magistrate, Nasri Lahoud, questioned five suspects and filed official charges against them.
Late on Friday, the court, headed by Brigadier Maher Safieddine fined those convicted of entering “Israel” and sentenced members of “Israel’s” now-defunct proxy militia. Four defendants were convicted in absentia of collaboration and sentenced to 15 years in prison, while the court dropped the charges against another seven men.
Of the 35 in custody, five were convicted of collaboration and received sentences from one to seven years. Thirty defendants were convicted of entering “Israel” and received sentences ranging from a fine of LL800,000 to two months in prison plus LL1 million fine.
More than 1,700 militia members surrendered to Lebanese authorities after “Israel’s” withdrawal on May 24. Almost all of them have been questioned and indicted, including a few who face execution if convicted of killing resistance fighters.

Iranian minister to help South…(4)
An Iranian Cabinet minister is due in Beirut next month to map out ways for Iran to aid the reconstruction drive in the formerly “Israeli”-occupied south.
Iranian Ambassador Mohammed Ali Subhani made the announcement at a meeting with Economy Minister Nasser Saidi on Saturday dedicated to tackling the rebuilding of the newly-liberated regions.
“A Cabinet member in the Islamic Republic will visit Lebanon to conduct a study on Iranian-Lebanese agricultural cooperation, as well as development and reconstruction projects,” said Subhani, who did not give details about the coming visit.
Subhani also suggested joint brainstorming on development of the South. “We suggested during the meeting with Saidi to push up the date of the Lebanese-Iranian joint economic committee meeting to address the unfolding events in the South and Lebanon’s development needs,” Subhani said. “The role of the committee should be clarified.”
Subhani also urged all citizens displaced from the South to return to their villages.
Saidi said he filled in Subhani on the government’s current five-year development proposal for the South, which was first produced in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program and the Higher Relief Committee.
“We’ve invited Iran, like all states, to come to Lebanon’s aid,” said Saidi.

Footnotes:

1-                    The Daily Star, 19-6-2000.

2-                    Same source.

3-                    Same source.

4-                    Same source.